


for a moment we were able to be still

by infinitefire



Series: moments [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Modern AU, idk what else to say?, it's just fluff, modern au despite me not knowing how the real world works, there's no plot or anything really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitefire/pseuds/infinitefire
Summary: Pavetta's seventeenth birthday is a wonderful day.
Relationships: Calanthe Fiona Riannon & Pavetta, Calanthe Fiona Riannon/Eist Tuirseach, Pavetta & Eist Tuirseach
Series: moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1841272
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	for a moment we were able to be still

**Author's Note:**

> title from "no choir" by florence + the machine

_It’s too early to be waking up,_ Pavetta thinks as she reaches for her phone on her nightstand, quickly turning off her alarm.

_It’s my birthday,_ she then remembers, sitting up and squinting at the date on the too-bright screen. She smiles to herself a little.

_It’s too early to be waking up on my birthday,_ she concludes, slumping back down on her pillows and closing her eyes for just a few more seconds. Just a few more seconds, really; if she lies there any longer she’ll fall back asleep and end up late for school.

Fortunately, she’s spared from the possibility of drifting off again by the chime of a notification on her phone. She giggles at the preview of the “happy birthday” text from her friend Anica, all caps and typos on every word and concluded with a chain of emojis that’s too long for the notification to display. Outright laughs when several more messages (a series of gifs, also from Anica) appear in such quick succession that there isn’t enough time for the text tone to finish playing between each one. 

Pavetta rolls out of bed, giddy and suddenly very awake, so she can get dressed and respond to the texts over breakfast. 

She stays just as giddy and awake throughout her morning routine, the excitement so strong that the tiredness from not enough sleep still hasn’t hit her by the time she’s ready to leave.

It’s going to be a good day, she decides as she slings her backpack over her shoulders and opens the front door to head out.

She’s startled to find Eist standing right outside, looking just as startled at the door suddenly opening just when he was about to knock. He’s probably here to see Calanthe, though why he’s come at this hour is beyond Pavetta. Her mother isn’t the most pleasant person to be around in the early morning, to say the least—it’s one of the reasons Pavetta was keen on learning to drive as soon as she was old enough, so she would be able to get to school on her own and wouldn’t have to deal with six a.m. Calanthe every day.

Eist must _really_ love her if he willingly chooses to deal with her this early.

“She’s still in bed, I think,” Pavetta tells him, “but you can come inside if you’d like. I was just about to go.”

“I actually came to see you.”

“Oh?”

Eist smiles and holds out the most ridiculous gift bag she’s ever seen. “Happy birthday, Pavetta.”

Pavetta doesn’t know whether to gasp, squeal, or laugh. She just ends up staring with an open-mouthed smile on her face.

“It was the only bag I could find,” he says, not sounding too apologetic.

“I—thank you!” She takes the gift, almost shaking with excitement. “May I open it?”

“Yes, of course. That is usually what you do with presents.”

Pavetta giggles.

Considering the packaging, she expects the actual gift will be something equally ridiculous. Not that she would mind, exactly; in the time that he and her mother have been together, Eist has proven that he understands Pavetta isn’t a child, respects her enough to treat her like… well, an almost-adult.

(Pavetta was worried, at first, before she met him, that he would treat her like a child, wouldn’t take her seriously, as was—still is—the case with so many adults. But it’s never been the case with Eist; whenever Pavetta brings up environmental sustainability or social justice issues, he listens respectfully, provides his own insights when he has them without condescending, and does so even when Calanthe tells her to leave it alone.)

She didn’t even really expect a gift from him. A card, perhaps, or maybe a gift card. So if it turns out to be some silly, childish thing she has no real use for, she’ll get a good laugh and won’t be too disappointed; Eist has, after all, taken up the great responsibility of telling dad jokes, and this might very well be a continuation of that.

It’s not.

Inside the bag are several embroidery hoops of different sizes (slightly sturdier than the ones she usually uses, Pavetta notes), and quite possibly enough embroidery thread to double her current stash. Lifting out a handful of skeins to properly see the colors, she finds to her absolute delight that they’re all in shades of green. More shades of green than all the other colors she has combined, from the looks of it.

“You like embroidering plants, yes?” Eist asks in response to the look of open-mouthed glee on her face, already knowing the answer. Pavetta nods vigorously.

There’s also a card. It’s much like the gift itself in that the design on the front and the printed message inside are entirely in the spirit of the dad jokes, but there’s also a fairly long handwritten message that Pavetta only dares to skim before putting it back in the bag, lest she start crying at how thoughtful it is and end up late this morning.

She hugs Eist. “Thanks, dad.”

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Pavetta grins widely, stands there for another few seconds, just long enough to make it clear that she knows what she said, but not long enough to provide a chance for things to get unbearably awkward, then slips past him and rushes to her car. Unfortunately, she does have to get to school on time.

Her heart is still racing and she’s still grinning to herself when she pulls out of the driveway and turns the corner, “Dancing Queen” appropriately starting to play as her phone automatically connects to the car’s audio system. It hadn’t been planned, exactly, calling him “dad”—she wasn’t even expecting to see him today—but it wasn’t unintentional either, like the handful of times she’s accidentally called a teacher “mom.” It felt natural, even more than she expected. She thought it might feel a little strange, might feel like Calanthe and Eist’s relationship wasn’t at the point where Pavetta was allowed to call him “dad” yet, but it didn’t. Not to Pavetta, at least. Eist has been acting as much like a father as has been appropriate for however close his relationship with Pavetta—Pavetta, not Calanthe—was at the given time almost ever since Pavetta met him, always making an effort to get to know and understand her, cracking jokes to lighten the awkwardness of small talk, listening and offering words of comfort and advice when she was upset or nervous (only when she was open to it, and especially when her mother was part of the problem or didn’t know what to say).

Pavetta always used to think that things would be reversed if her mother ever started dating someone, that Calanthe would be pushing the relationship forward and Pavetta would be thinking it was going too fast. It seems almost silly now, that she used to think that, considering their personalities. Calanthe’s brand of stubborn defiance is refusing to get along with anyone, while Pavetta’s brand of stubborn defiance is getting along with everyone.

Not that Calanthe isn’t pushing her relationship with Eist forward at all—even without looking for them, Pavetta has seen signs that the relationship has gotten more intimate (emotionally; she’d much rather not know about the physical parts), has been seeing signs of it ever since Eist started coming over for dinner every once in a while, and it’s become more and more obvious as he’s started coming over more and more often.

It happens at least once a week at this point, him coming over for dinner, and it’s now a much more relaxed occasion with no more fuss and fanfare than dinner on any other day when it’s just Calanthe and Pavetta. Having him around feels perfectly normal, so much so that more than once, Pavetta has thought that he might as well just move in. She even said so to her mother last week, and the conversation seemed to go well.

_“How would you feel if he did?” Calanthe asked carefully when Pavetta brought up the subject._

_Pavetta, already having thought about it a great deal, possibly even more than her mother had, declared, “I think that would be wonderful. On one condition.”_

_Calanthe raised an eyebrow, tilted her head._

_“I want to move into the room down the hall.”_

_“The one that’s essentially a storage room?”_

_“Yes, well, it wasn’t supposed to be, that’s just how we ended up using it. It’s bigger than my room, and it’s farther away from your room, so I won’t have to hear my parents having sex every night.”_

_Calanthe was too stunned to come up with a response to that immediately. “When you say it’s bigger,” she said finally, “you mean more wall space to paint on?”_

_“Maybe.”_

Yes, Pavetta decides, referring to her mother and Eist “my parents” when talking to her mother went perfectly well. She just hopes calling Eist “dad” wasn’t too soon for him (she didn’t exactly stick around see his reaction beyond the initial surprise). If it was, she can probably play it off as a joke. If it wasn’t, then… well… good.

Either way, Pavetta is very happy. She has all this thread now, in all these shades of green. A wave of excitement crashes through her. 

She’s gonna embroider so many plants.

* * *

When Calanthe gets up, far earlier than usual so she can wish her daughter a happy birthday, Eist is still standing motionless in the doorway, trying to process what just happened, which is how she finds him, much to her confusion.

“Eist Tuirseach,” she grumbles, “why are you standing there at the—why is the front door open, what is going on?”

“Calanthe,” he says, finally coming back to his surroundings. He feels a rush of affection when he sees her, still in her pajamas, hair tied in the same loose braid she usually wears to bed and still a bit frizzy from the friction of her pillow, eyes still a bit sleepy. Not that he hasn’t seen her like this before, but she looks adorably soft and warm (though she would absolutely murder him, violently, if he said so). “I was just stopping by.”

Calanthe arches a brow. “Stopping by to do something, or did you just come to stare at my house?”

Eist exhales, half laughing; runs a hand through his hair. “I came to drop off a birthday gift for Pavetta.”

“That would be sweet, only you seem to have forgotten the gift.”

“Already gave it to her,” he says with a glance back at the space in the driveway where Pavetta’s car had been. “She just left.”

Calanthe curses under her breath. “I was hoping to at least say ‘happy birthday’ first.” She focuses her attention back on Eist. “I know we didn’t have plans today, but since you’re here, if you don’t have anywhere you need to be right away, would you like to come inside and finish explaining what you were doing standing there like a fool in front of my open front door?”

“I would love to.”

With a dramatic sigh, she gestures for him to come inside and follow her; he does, closing the door behind him.

“Haven’t had your coffee yet?” he asks lightly.

Calanthe stops. Turns her head to look at him over her shoulder, narrows her eyes. “I’m a fucking delight, even without coffee, thank you very much.”

Eist takes the opportunity to move closer, close enough to turn her around and pull her into his arms. “That you are, my darling,” he says with only a hint of teasing in his smile, leaning in for a kiss. She hums against his lips, curls her fingers slightly into his shirt.

The kiss ends abruptly as Calanthe slaps his ass, using his surprise at the force she manages this early in the morning as a chance to slip out of his embrace and head to the kitchen. Hearing him chuckle lightly behind her, she allows herself a small, soft, secret smile.

She starts preparing breakfast for herself, and Eist comes up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist, nuzzles his face into her hair, presses gentle kisses to the side of her head. If only he wasn’t so wonderfully warm and cozy, she’d be annoyed at him for trapping her in his arms when she’s trying to do things. But she quite likes his arms, and they currently feel very nice.

She manages to free one of her hands so she can bring it up to ruffle his hair. His lips curve into a smile against her temple, and Calanthe can’t help but smile a bit as well.

“You were going to explain something,” she mumbles pointedly, wanting to return to the matter at hand (she does really want to know what Eist was doing standing in front of the open door) and wanting to get on with breakfast so her brain can start functioning properly, but not wanting to give up the feeling of his arms around her quite yet.

“Mm.” With one last kiss to the top of her head, he loosens his arms, allowing her to reluctantly pull away and get back to what she was doing.

She glances back at him for just a moment to offer him something to eat or drink, which he politely declines, having already eaten, and she’d be surprised there isn’t an innuendo on his tongue if she wasn’t too distracted by the sight of him casually leaning against the counter. He has the top button of his shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up; his hair is slightly messed up (not messed up enough, she decides, making a mental note to do a more thorough job of disheveling it before he leaves); and he’s gazing at her with that adoring look in his eyes that’s as sweet as it is passionate. Overall, he looks absolutely perfect, like he’s exactly where he belongs.

_Fuck. Focus, Calanthe,_ she tells herself, using what willpower she has to turn away and actually get herself some food (her stomach is starting to grow impatient).

“As I said, I came by to give Pavetta a birthday gift,” Eist finally begins, bringing Calanthe’s attention back to her curiosity as to what left him standing there open-mouthed, staring into space, in front of the door that really should not have been open. It’s sweet of him, she thinks, to come over today specifically—before seven a.m., no less—just to give her daughter a gift on her birthday, rather than giving it to Calanthe to give to Pavetta the day before, or giving it to Pavetta a few days later. “She opened the door to leave just as I was about to knock, I gave her the gift… she must have figured I was coming in to see you and left the door open.”

“Alright, but that doesn’t explain the look you had on that adorable craggy face,” says Calanthe, unable to resist a bit of teasing, sitting down to eat and looking up at him with an overly sappy smile that turns into a satisfied smirk when a faint blush appears on his cheeks.

“She called me ‘dad,’” he says quietly.

Calanthe’s eyes widen. She tilts her head.

“When I gave her the present. She said, ‘Thanks, dad.’”

“And?” Calanthe asks, voice suddenly much softer and more delicate than usual. “How… how do you feel about it?”

“Surprised.”

“Yes, that much I could tell.” A pause. “Surprised… in a good way?”

“Yes,” he responds without hesitation.

A brilliant smile breaks out over Calanthe’s face, a smile Eist can’t help but return.

There’s a comfortable silence that follows. They keep smiling at each other with soft and shining eyes, only looking away for brief moments when Calanthe takes a bite of her breakfast, or when her gaze flickers down to his hand, loosely gripping the edge of the counter, and she reaches out to take it with her own free hand, intertwining their fingers. It’s achingly soft, intimate in a way she hasn’t experienced before, a kind of intimacy that would terrify her if this were anyone but Eist, anyone but the man she’s so hopelessly in love with. They’ve shared other kinds of intimacy before, yes—sexual intimacy, like fire inside and out; physical intimacy, limbs curling around each other like water (though Calanthe would never admit to how much she enjoys cuddling); emotional intimacy, quiet confessions full of raw vulnerability; even the intimacy of simply sitting in the same room while doing different things, taking comfort in each other’s presence.

But this—this being together, not saying a word, barely touching, just loving looks and warm smiles, utterly at ease—is different. It’s like honey, slow and sweet.

Somehow, it makes her feel perfectly content and yet simultaneously drives her wild. The urge to press their joined hands to her lips, or to stand up and cradle his face in her hands and kiss him deeply, is almost overwhelming, but she doesn’t quite want to risk disturbing the quiet comfort in the stillness.

(She’s also aware that if she gets up to kiss him right now, she’ll never finish eating, and they’ll probably end up fucking right there on the kitchen counter.)

Eventually, the incredible warmth becomes too much, and she has to break the silence before she starts blushing or melts into a puddle on the floor.

“How’s your little boat project going?” she asks.

“You may remember that it’s actually a very big project.”

Calanthe makes a small noise of interest at that, as if this is the first time she’s hearing this information.

“And you’ve never really cared about that.”

She shakes her head, looking at him far too softly to truly imply that there’s anything she doesn’t care about when it concerns him.

“But you care about me?” he suggests with a hint of a smirk.

“I care about whether I made the right decision not to invest in the project back when you first came to me. I want to know what kind of a return I might have missed out on,” she says with the softest little smile and the gentlest tone and the most loving look in her eyes that clearly says, _yes, yes I care about you, so much more than you know._

Besides, she had made it very clear, back when they first met, how certain she was about her decision, firmly turning him down every time he approached her with his ideas. And that was how things started between them, really.

_“I don’t want to hear it, Mr. Tuirseach,” she snapped into the phone. “I’m not changing my mind.”_

_“I know. I called to let you know that I’ve found other investors.”_

_“Oh, good. I hope this means you can stop bothering me now. Have a—”_

_“I also called to ask you something, if I may.”_

_Calanthe’s irritated sigh was loud enough to be heard over the phone. “What?”_

_“Would you like to go out to dinner with me sometime, on a date?”_

_She was absolutely furious, at being interrupted and at the audacity he had, asking her that—the answer should have been a definitive no, without question._

_But he was attractive. Annoyingly so. And he was… not entirely unbearable. He could keep up with her in an argument, actually responded to the things she said, didn’t rely on being able to interrupt her or speak louder than her, was never impolite if he could avoid it._

_“... Dinner,” she repeated._

_“Yes,” came his voice in reply._

_She considered his offer. At worst, it would be a free meal. At best, a night of hate sex. It certainly wouldn’t be the beginning of the greatest and most passionate relationship of her life._

_Fuck it, she decided._

_“All right,” she said. “After all the trouble you’ve put me through, I think that’s the least you owe me.”_

Eist takes the seat next to her at the counter so their eyes are at the same level. “I think between you and the people who did invest, you got the better deal.”

“How so?”

“They get money, you get me.”

“And I couldn’t have had both?”

“As long as we had a business relationship, I wouldn’t have asked you out.”

“I suppose you would have tried to keep things strictly professional.”

“Tried?”

“You’re the one with the morals, my darling. I would have had no such concerns.”

“Are you saying you would have asked me out?”

“No,” she says. Then, after a beat, with a smirk on her lips, “Sooner or later I would have dragged you into the nearest secluded space and—gods know what I would have done to you. Anything you’d let me, probably.”

He laughs lightly. “You would have.”

Her smirk deepens.

“Is the offer still available? To drag me into the nearest secluded space and—”

“Always. Goes without saying.” The corners of her eyes crinkle fondly. “Just let me eat first,” she adds, sensing in his mischievous grin that he’s about to start teasing her.

Mercifully, he doesn’t start teasing her, but the twinkle in his eye tells her she was right to suspect that was his intention.

He does say, after a few moments, “To answer your question, though, the ‘little boat project’ is going well.”

“Good.” She means it, he can tell.

Once Calanthe is finished eating, she glances at the clock.

“It’s nearly seven,” she says. “Do you have somewhere to be this morning?”

“Not for a few more hours.”

She looks at him incredulously. “Then why are you awake so early?”

“I went for a run earlier.”

“I don’t understand why you wake up so early just to exercise.”

“Any later, it gets too hot outside.”

“Then go to the gym. They invented things like air conditioning and treadmills for a reason.”

Eist chuckles. “We’ve been over this, my love. The scenery is outdoors, not at the gym.”

“The scenery, yes.”

“Perhaps someday I’ll get you to join me, and you can see some of the fabled scenery for yourself.”

“Mm. You can try, my dear Eist, but you’ll have to drag me out of bed first, and I doubt you’ll have much luck with that.” Calanthe leans forward so she can whisper in his ear, running a finger down his neck and along the skin just beneath the collar of his shirt as she does. “I can be _highly_ persuasive when I want to get you back into bed.”

“I know,” he breathes.

“In fact, if you have a few more hours, I think I’ll see if I can persuade you to come back to bed with me right now.” She teases his earlobe between her teeth.

“You already have,” he growls.

Calanthe smiles. “That easy, hm?” she mutters warmly.

Eist makes a soft sound of agreement. She kisses him, dips her tongue into his mouth, bites his lip as she pulls away.

“Let’s go to bed, then,” she whispers.

* * *

“The composition is beautiful,” says Mousesack. “I don’t think you need to change anything.”

“Are you sure?” Pavetta bites the inside of her cheek, squinting at the pencil outline from a distance. “It feels imbalanced with so little detail in the flower and so much detail everywhere else.”

“I think the contrast is great. And it will look more balanced once you add color.”

“I guess…”

“But if you feel like it needs something, then you should follow your instincts.”

“I just want it to be perfect. Aretuza is really hard to get into, and I need all my pieces to be amazing if I wanna go there.”

Mousesack turns away from the art to look at the artist. “I still don’t understand why you would want to go to Aretuza, of all the art schools on the Continent,” he begins.

“You and my mother both,” mutters Pavetta.

“She wants you to stay closer to home?”

“Mm-hm.”

“I see. Well, I may not understand why you want to go to Aretuza, or why you would take my advice when you know my style is the opposite of what Aretuza is known for, but your work can be amazing without being perfect. If it was perfect, you wouldn’t need art school. Besides, I think you are a harsher critic of yourself than anyone in charge of art school admissions. Even at Aretuza.”

Pavetta smiles. “Thanks, Mousesack.”

“Do you want a hug?”

She nods, going in for the hug. He pats her back gently. When she pulls away, she seems a little less nervous, a little more composed.

“Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thank you—wait, did I tell you it was my birthday?”

“Eist may have mentioned it.”

Oh. Right. Of course. 

The absurdity of the coincidence that her mother’s boyfriend’s close friend and neighbor just _happens_ to be her art teacher amazes Pavetta no less than it did when she found out some months ago.

But still, “Why?”

“He wanted gift advice.”

“Oh, so the embroidery stuff was your idea?”

“No, he wanted my professional advice as an artist on what colors of thread to get for someone who already has.”

“Ah. What did you tell him?”

“Whatever she uses most,” Mousesack shrugs. “Different shades… I assume you can’t mix colors like paint.”

Pavetta laughs. “You would be right.”

Mousesack leaves Pavetta to her thoughts and her artwork then, called away by someone announcing that the white acrylic paint is out. It’s touchingly sweet, she thinks, that Eist would ask his artist friend for advice to make sure he got her a good gift. A bit amusing, considering that the friend in question is also Pavetta’s art teacher, and that Eist seems not to have said anything about not telling Pavetta (she’s sure that if he had, Mousesack would have kept quiet). But thoughtful.

Pavetta takes another look at her drawing. Reminds herself, _if it was perfect, you wouldn’t need art school._ Decides she’s ready to color it.

With a glance at the clock to make sure she has enough time to actually make some progress, she goes to grab some oil pastels from the cabinet and an extra piece of paper to test colors. As she’s bringing things back to her desk, Mousesack catches her eye and smiles.

* * *

As soon as Pavetta opens the door when she gets home, she hears her mother’s footsteps approaching. She barely has time to kick the door shut and set her things down on the floor before Calanthe appears and wraps her arms around her. Pavetta hugs her back.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” Calanthe kisses the top of Pavetta’s head. Pavetta smiles into Calanthe’s chest.

From the angle they’re standing, the gift bag from Eist is right in Calanthe’s line of vision when she looks over Pavetta’s shoulder, and it quickly catches her attention.

“What is the deal with that bag?”

Pavetta turns around, grabs the gift and holds it up. “Oh, this? It’s a gift from Eist, he stopped by this morning to give it to me.”

Now that it’s no longer half-concealed by Pavetta’s backpack, Calanthe realizes how truly awful the gift bag is, all bright colors and sparkles and clashing patterns. And, to make it worse, a cartoonish depiction of a lion and a shark celebrating at a birthday party.

“Yes, I saw him,” says Calanthe. “I got up so I could wish you a happy birthday before you left and found him standing outside. When he told me he came by to give you a gift, I thought it was sweet, but seeing this, I’m not so sure anymore, dear gods, that bag is absolutely horrible.”

“Isn’t it?” says Pavetta, stifling a giggle.

Calanthe nods, stifling a laugh of her own. _This man,_ she thinks. _This utterly ridiculous, stupidly sweet, wonderful man. How I love him._

“Oh, it gets worse.” Pavetta, beaming delightedly, sets the bag down and looks through it to find the card. “Look at this,” she says, voice trembling with the effort of containing her laughter, holding up the card so Calanthe can see that the front shows an assortment of cheeses. “The inside says—” Pavetta opens the card to read it—“‘I was going to get you a nice card but all I could find was this cheesy one.’”

There’s a moment of stillness between them.

“It’s not funny,” Calanthe insists, her entire body shaking with silent laughter.

“It’s not!” agrees Pavetta, outright cackling.

Calanthe can’t help but laugh out loud a bit as well.

“Do I even want to know what the actual gift is?” she chuckles once Pavetta seems to have caught her breath.

“Embroidery stuff!” Pavetta exclaims, suddenly lighting up with genuine excitement. “The nice kind, too!”

Seeing the actual things Eist got Pavetta doesn’t really mean anything to Calanthe (she doesn’t know shit about what embroidery materials are high-quality or anything). But seeing the way Pavetta lights up means the world.

“Alright,” Calanthe says after a moment of feigned deliberation, “he’s redeemed himself. This was sweet of him.”

Pavetta giggles.

Calanthe smiles softly. “He said you called him ‘dad.’”

Pavetta nods, then frowns a little. “Is there a problem with that?”

“No.”

Smiling again, Pavetta lets out a relieved exhale.

“I’m… glad you two are getting along so well.”

Pavetta’s smile grows wider.

“I also have something for you,” says Calanthe, grabbing an envelope Pavetta hadn’t noticed lying on a side table.

“A birthday gift from my own mother. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Yes, try not to be too happy about it.”

Pavetta takes the envelope and starts tearing it open. She pulls out the papers inside, frowns a bit as she tries to figure out which way they’re oriented.

Once she realizes that she’s looking at tickets to a Jaskier concert, Pavetta squeals. She throws her arms around Calanthe, who smiles at the force of her daughter’s embrace.

“Happy birthday,” she says.

“Thanks, mom. You’re the best.”

She can’t see her face, but Calanthe can tell Pavetta is beaming like the sun.

It’s not always like this—the school year has barely started and Calanthe has already begun to notice a well of stress and tiredness starting to build up inside Pavetta, eating away bits of her overall happiness, and Calanthe knows that it will get much worse, knows that it will exacerbate the tension that seems to define their relationship more often than not, that they will argue more, that she will see fewer and fewer of Pavetta’s smiles, that there will be fewer and fewer things Pavetta shares with her as readily as she showed her the gift from Eist (it hasn’t escaped Calanthe’s notice that Pavetta read the inside of the card aloud rather than let her see it, and she supposes she’s at least glad that Pavetta and Eist have their own relationship apart from her, that it’s strong enough for Pavetta to call him “dad,” strong enough that she might seek comfort and guidance from him on things she would never in a million years talk to Calanthe about). 

And Calanthe knows everything will change after this year. Pavetta will become an adult (in some ways; in some ways she’ll still be a child and in some ways she already is an adult). She’ll probably head off to study art at Aretuza no matter how much Calanthe disapproves of that particular choice or tries to dissuade her. It’s impossible to tell, at this point, what all the changes will mean for Pavetta and Calanthe’s relationship.

But today, Pavetta is happy, and Calanthe is happy to have played some small part in that. Today, things are good.

Calanthe holds Pavetta closer.

Things are good.

**Author's Note:**

> i might... write more fics in this au... idk i have some ideas...... who knows
> 
> anyway as always thank you so much for reading, comments = my eternal love and gratitude, and you can always come scream at me on tumblr, where i am [firesofthestars](https://firesofthestars.tumblr.com)
> 
> 💖💖


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